Chasing Forever (Chasing 4)

“Doesn’t your tongue have any heat sensory system?”

That made him put his cup back down on the barrel-like table, considering me like my question was the strangest thing someone had ever asked him. Well, maybe it was.

It was then I saw him crack his usual, arrogant smirk before it became a full smile. “Why waste time in waiting for it to get cooler? Sometimes it’s best to take things the way they are—like they were supposed to be.” He shrugged. “Why waste time changing it? Besides, it isn’t that bad once you get used to it, like everything in life.”

He made sense; I couldn’t argue about that. He’d always had a way with things. How he looked at life, full of wisdom and knowledge. I was sure him being on his own since he was ten-years-old after his parents’ accident had played a vital role in shaping the man that he was today. He never wasted time, opportunities, priorities or his women. He would jump in and go all out, consequences be damned. I admired him for that, wishing that someday I could be just as cautious and reckless at the same time.

“I took the liberty of tracking down her parents so they could be informed. Apparently, the cell phone signals were lacking, so tracking them down was difficult, but I took care of it. They were informed that their daughter was in an accident, nothing more. And if everything went according to plan, they should be on their way back as we speak.”

God, her parents. They would be completely devastated with the news. Amelia had been their world.

“I appreciate it, mate. Thanks.”

“I also had someone look into the accident.” He paused, weighing my reaction before continuing. “It seems like Amelia committed suicide.”

Shaking my head, I didn’t want to believe him.

“She apparently didn’t wear a seatbelt before driving off a cliff.”

He sounded so insensitive, as if he was detached from this disaster that he’d taken part in creating, that I simply blew a gasket. “She wouldn’t—that’s absurd! She was pregnant for fuck’s sake. Where the bloody fuck did you get this inaccurate information? It looks like your sources aren’t doing their jobs!”

“I saw the driver himself this morning. Juan Carlos was the one who called me last night, letting me know what had happened after the cops swarmed the house and started interviewing everyone. How did you think I found out?”

I hadn’t even thought about it. When it came to Knightly and his vast minions and sources all over the globe, I hadn’t been a bit surprised that he was there when I woke this morning.

“What did he say?”

“After leaving your hotel last night, she asked him to drive her to a church that she frequented once or twice a week, attending a mass or doing a confession around seven in the morning.” He paused, gauging my face. “She begged her priest for a confession”

“Did you happen to know what she told the priest?”

“He wouldn’t disclose anything of use, says that he is a man of God who has vowed not to break confidence with his people. Including the ones who are dead.”

It wasn’t a doubt any longer because Blake had just confirmed what I’d feared most. There had been inkling, but I had brushed it aside yesterday.

It greatly saddened me to know that she had been aware of was doing before she’d even said goodbye to me the night prior. No wonder she had chosen her farewell words carefully. Those words were forever ingrained in my head—my memory. It would haunt me eternally, knowing that the clues had been there, staring blatantly at me, and yet, I somehow had been too naïve and too much in denial to see her full intentions.

No wonder her demeanor had immediately changed… she was already plotting the whole time… even when we had gone to that ultrasound appointment. But if she wanted to end her life, why bother going to the doctors anyway?

She had done it for the baby…

There was a possibility that the baby might survive and she had wanted to cover every angle by letting me be attached to it by some sense of familiarity before she’d progressed and executed her plan of demise.

“She loved you,” I murmured. “Until her last breath.”

The man across me fell silent.

We had both caused her pain. It was truly beyond unfortunate how she’d decided to end her life. I believed that, given time, she could’ve found happiness. Perhaps she even would have found another guy that she could fall madly in love with, and Blake Knightly would have just vanished from her heart. Sadly, she hadn’t believed in that.

“Amelia loved me in a different way,” he broke his silence, frowning at the table with great concentration. “She loved the idea of me—the man in control, the guy sitting at the ahead of the boardroom table, the man in charge.”

She had beaten herself emotionally at first then mentally before succumbing to the physical, ending it once and for all. The image of her dead with bruises, cuts and the deep lacerations in her arms

“She suffered living. I hope she’s suffering no longer.”

“Indeed. I pray that she doesn’t,” Blake murmured much to himself.

Most women chased him for that very reason. Maybe Amelia’s had been the same in a sense, but hers just had gone a little deeper than the rest, Camilla Clayworth and Ivanna aside.

In my own way, I sort of understood her and why she’d chosen the way to end things as she had. I didn’t agree with it, however I understood where she had been coming from. When you were suffering from unrequited love, you worked on trying to kill that feeling. You could attempt to bury it for a time, but when something triggered you and it sets off your emotions, there would be no escaping.

Because, when it chose to remain, all you could try to do was hide it, lock it somewhere where no one could feel it other than you. You’d still sense it in every second the time ticked away. You’d feel it when you heard the birds chirping out in the garden, when you sipped your coffee in the morning, or when you drove your car. It was there. In you. Bonding with you, seeping into your system, wounding you until you were interlaced with it and it eventually dictated your ultimate purpose.

I had been suffering along with Amelia. The only difference with me was I had chosen to accept the fact that my love for Lucy could never be buried or tamed. Accepting that unlucky fate that I would never be with her again was the wisest thing I had done. It hurt more than words could ever describe, but loving her was all I had known, therefore I would keep on loving her until there was nothing left of me except flakes and ashes on the ground.